Biography
Rather moving speech about the friend artist Paolo Moretto
by Bruno Lunghi.
<< Our real life is for more than three quarters made of imagination and fiction>>
Simone Weil
In our opinion it is not a matter of judging or cataloguing, but above all of learning how to look at and listen to. We keep on thinking in an antique way: the essence of an artist is to be found in what he does, his work, and not in his biography. How should we look at all these things? Very simple. One has to look at them live. To understand what has been painted or drawn or simply glued on like in a gluing- material for instance- it is necessary to come closer. To do so only relying on a photographical reproduction is impossible, as good as this one may be. When we look at the painting and sculpture of Paolo Moretto, the first thing that catches our attention is this one: his production is of all respect, very wide and very varied. This seems an essential point to us. But let us add two others: the variety of games Paolo Moretto is able to play and a certain ability of joking, of lightness what does not necessarily mean superficiality, right on the contrary, it might have to do with the talent of not taking oneself- or above all what is nowadays impudently presented to us as the one and only reality- too seriously. Let's leave to others the mission to establish if, in his more than over thirty years production one can demarcate different stages that are more or less definable. What seems more interesting to us are some moments of passage, some points of transition and/or of slip roads. The sculptures of its early stages played with heavy equipment, with strong symbols: the wheel, the chariot. One could draw out of it an impression of solidity. And then suddenly-at some point-start popping out compositions of a filiform and light structure. They are still made out of metal, but they don't give the impression of hardiness and solidity anymore, on the contrary they are lain upright, held above by very subtle wires. They remind us of the piles of houses on stilts or of the frail, flexible and elongated legs of some big birds like flamingos or cranes. They also make us think of some of Italo Calvino's subtle cities: Isaura, Armilla, Iofronia, Ottavia: "I shall now describe the city of Zenobia and tell what admirable there is about her: although located on dry ground she stands out on very high
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stilts, and the houses are made out of bamboo and zinc, with many galleries and balconies, placed at different heights, on stilts that step over one another, connected by ladders and hanging sidewalks, surmounted by belvederes covered with conical roofs, barrels of water tanks, weather vanes, and pulleys, lines and cranes jutting out." The painting depicted among other things corners of houses, typically Italian cantons with frescoes or votive images posted at crossroads, saints and virgin Mary's in front of which altar candles were burning or fresh flowers were placed in simple vases or glasses (things that nowadays have totally vanished. When they still exist-resist, then the flowers are fake- out of plastic- and the light comes from an electrical lamp). In the painting of Paolo Moretto this world of devotion is highly contaminated by numbers drawn with stencil, by letters or entire sentences not taken from holy cards or prayer books, but from the world of advertisement and industry, and they nonetheless always remain just beautiful. And suddenly, following, pop out new images of landscape, with nature and animals, but the outline of chimneys or the silhouette of nuclear stations almost never fail to be present. The whole is considered with a lot of irony and distance. Neither the nature nor the chimneys seem to be so important (cause for Paulo Moretto is art the only thing that matters?). And then there is the series of all those paintings, in which circles and diamonds cover almost the whole surface of the canvas and what we catch sight of is as seen through stands: through peepholes, cracks or portholes of a ship. What seems to matter the most here is the rhythmical game, the colors and the details- the pleasure of the composition- more then what is seen or glimpsed. Mostly interesting are those moments were the painting seems to have the intention of transforming itself into sculpture and the sculpture into painting. The whole is very hybrid, sometimes double-faced. The metal gains color, becomes colored. The sculptures can also contain paintings.
<< Imagination is the queen of all abilities>> Charles Baudelaire
<< ... we can't plan a life as we plan an industrial project, on the contrary one of the dangers of our time is the merchandizing of the useless to which the young ones are particularly sensitive. Anyway, I am here because I have written poetry, a totally useless product, but almost never dangerous and this is one of its main titles of nobility.>> Eugenio Montale, from his speech given at the Nobel Prize Ceremony (1975)
Conclusion: One thing is sure Paolo Moretto does not lack imagination-in-action. If we paraphrase Montale: "Anyway we are here because we care about art, a totally useless thing, but almost never dangerous and this is one of its main titles of nobility."
